My Journey; My Why…

In fact, that’s something I want to help more people do… enjoy their lives as much as I enjoy mine.

After all, we weren’t put here on this earth to sit behind desks in tiny cubicles for 8 to 10 hours a day.

Surely we weren’t born only to grow up, go to “the right” schools, get “the right” education, get hired at “the right” job… only to be miserable because we don’t have enough quality time left at the end of the day to spend with family and friends.

When I came to that realization is when I decided to become a real estate entrepreneur. I say “entrepreneur” because that what it is when you are building your real estate investing business.

It is a business and you have to approach it that way.

You have to build teams and work with other people to get to your goals. That’s especially true when you invest in properties in the U.S. from other countries.

But before I get into how I’m building a bridge between countries through providing unique real estate investing opportunities, let me tell you a little about my personal journey.

You see, I’ve always been able to build toward goals. They weren’t always mine, but if you set one in front of me I’m going to do my dead level best to reach it.

One of the goals I set for myself was to be financially comfortable in my life… so I could create a better quality of life for my children than what I grew up with.

Don’t get me wrong…

My parents are wonderful people. They worked really, really hard. In fact, they worked more than one job at a time to provide for my siblings and me.

But we also watched them get more and more stressed out. In the end, these financial stresses broke my parents apart. They divorced.

This was after moving from one state to another and back again in America. We moves a lot. The most memorable places were Texas and Ohio, where we lived a couple of times and ended up in eventually. It’s also where I attended college… in Columbus, Ohio and where I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in marketing.

My parents… still working very, very hard to earn every dime they could… were very proud of me, because I was the first to graduate college in my family.

Heck, I was proud of myself. And I learned a lot about how other people lived. I was fortunate to have teachers and mentors who pushed me to earn a B.A. in Spanish, too. That’s how I ended up in Valencia, Spain!

After three months in the country I still couldn’t speak Spanish. That’s when I learned how important focus is when you’re working toward your goals.

Instead of focusing on my studies, I hung out with friends and saw the countryside. And even though I saved money and earned a scholarship I still didn’t learn Spanish… the goal I had set for myself.

I returned to the States… to Miami University in Florida… to finish my degree.

What’s funny is that I remember how my friends and I had poked fun at a “nerdy” guy who was in Spain learning Spanish. Boy, he was focused!

Guess what?

This nerdy young man learned Spanish in short time. He reached his goal. He was the only one in the group to do it, too.

It was clear that I’d have to change my ways and get focused. This newfound mindset paid off. I learned Spanish and became fluent.

Not too long after that one of my best friends to this day suggested that I apply for a role at a company called MARITZ, a job that would take me to new places. I could see the world! So I applied and was one of 20 (out of 3000) to be hired in the summer of 1996.

Talk about being excited!!

However, that excitement waned over time because my job involved traveling 27 days out of the month to help Fortune 500 company heads improve their companies’ performance.

Sure, I saved lots and lots of money, and I lived the life of a rock star by traveling through 58 countries in 5 years, and it was way better than sitting in a cubicle at some 9-to-5 job… but something was missing.

So in the summer of 2001 I put in my notice and set three goals to hit in the next 12 months:

1) Speak French
2) Learn to Salsa dance
3) Get educated about wine

The good news is that I reached each goal. (In fact, I now speak five languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian and Catalan!)

But I learned something…

Be careful what you wish for, because a one year sabbatical can turn into a 15-year adventure!

What I learned while in France is that I love the culture and the people! I wasn’t going back to Ohio. I would stay.

Because of the executives and business owners I had met during my time with MARITZ, I was lead to a job at DELL and moved from Paris to the South of France to work there.

Because I’d learned French I was put into a sales job and I sold in French. It was a good life… but still something was missing.

As luck would have it I met a Spanish girl while working in the South of France; we met just as she was getting ready to move back to Barcelona. In love and sure that she was the woman for me I eventually followed her there and took a job in sales leadership training.

So what does all of this have to do with my getting involved in real estate investing and becoming an entrepreneur?

Well, when the market crashed in 2008 I read a book, Rich Dad Poor Dad. It opened my eyes. I didn’t want to risk having my savings tied up in a retirement plan or savings account where it wouldn’t do me any good.

I wanted to learn how to invest in real estate and earn a passive income.

So I took my sales skills and started looking at investing in Europe. The numbers just didn’t work. There would be no good cashflow if I invested my money in properties there.

Then I realized I had another option.

As an American citizen I am familiar with the U.S. So I called friend and asked him to look around for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the start of my building a team in America.

So in January 2013 I set new goals… to have 10 units of cashflowing properties in 5 years and earn a net income of 4 figures!

What I didn’t know was that it would only take 2 years to reach those goals.

My first properties were a duplex and two quad-plexes! Here… take a look:

Now I’ve pushed my goals further. The new goal is to have 300 units of property in the U.S. and walk away from my job once and for all.

I’ve been building a system to reach my new goal and I’m working with a variety of individuals to help get me there.